A-lotty-a-dotty-a-we-like-to-party! Bee-bop, hip hop, we also like to shop!

I constantly fantasize about combining my greatest passions in life into one megalopolis extravaganza affair that’s just too-too. Whatever could be more clever than a Vulcan mind-meld shopping-party, yeee-haw? I’d like to know. What mad, magical, woman-centric, PR genius came up with this endeavor? Seems that TopButton and Clear Channel are putting the dream into action at the upcoming STYLE STAGE NYC on May 5th & 6th… a scheme so brilliant, I can’t believe I didn’t come up with it first. There will be 60 designer sample sales and deeeeep discounts (go deep ladies, go deep), too sweet.

I have this quandary: every time I step into a fetching store slamming jamming beats, I find myself grooving around in a shopping haze, grabbing up tons of stuff to the rhythm and motion. And all of a sudden, I am immersed in the changing room, clothes piled high, shimmying in and out of slinky outfits like a woman possessed. When the credit card bill arrives, I plan my defense of temporary shopping insanity. But then I wouldn’t get to keep the fab designer bag, the pointy-toed shoes, the teal embroidered blouse, the skinny jeans that I cannot live without… you know what I’m saying. The shopping dance is the most basic, the most pleasurable, the most elemental of womanish pastimes, on par with eating and sleeping and bragging. There’s just nothing like the pleasure of carrying home new treasure in a sweet petite little brown bag, sassing and swaying and boasting, what a trip!

We all have our own unique shopping dance, our purchase wiggle, our buying prance. We love to flaunt our new digs, try them on, model them for the rag dolls. What is it with this obsession? Aw screw it, why try to deconstruct it, just shop till you bee-bop! And get down to live musical performances by the insatiable funky music white boy, Nick Lahey, go on, Sean Paul, it’s your birthday, it’s your birthday, Lucas Prata and Jagged Edge, it’s your birthday, it’s your birthday.

And one big giant shout out to the esteemed arts of shopping and partying cleverly blended together, may they live long and play hard!

STYLE STAGE NYC
Friday, May 5th & Saturday, May 6th
Metropolitan Pavilion & Altman Building (is the place to be)
125 & 135 West 18th Street, NYC
For detailed information & ticket purchase of different access packages visit: www.topbutton.com/stylestage

I’m a total tea hussie, a complete tea whore. I just can’t get enough of the stuff. I sip it all day, I slurp it at work. I know you think I’m some kinda afternoon tea freak, a Grandma tea geek, but honestly, it’s best all hot ‘n steamy after noon, picnic-style on the CEO’s floor (wink); I love it, I lurve it, I always want more! (Yes, I know I need more sex, but that’s a different topic entirely.) I like it in a house, I like it with a mouse, I like it fancy and I like it fine, I love it with the DJ slamming wickey-wickey on the vinyl. Reggae jams just blend so well with my white peony remix. Up with tea!

Tea + turntables (a-bobbly-bobbly-boop) = Tavalon, on 14th Street, NYC. It’s not a bar, not a club, but rather something of a devastatingly hip venue-fusion, where you hear all matter of musical genre spun live while enjoying fabulous tea concoctions. Tavalon is on a mission from Buddha. I know you think of tea as stodgy, teadrinkers as bores (present company excepted, of course), but Tavalon’s vision is to revamp that image. The owners, Korean and Indian gentlemen, each grew up drinking tea like water and ventured into this social experiment to establish a common language through music and tea for the non-existent under 35 tea clique, a movement slowly catching fire, if they have anything to do with it.

For real surreal, where else do you find a 17 year-old punk sipping tea, finger in the air, nibbling on ‘wichcraft and bopping out to ska? It’s an eclectic mix: the DJ’s bring in their own followings, who mingle with the tea nerds, and voile! soon there’s a whole next generation of mathematically brilliant, geeked-out music-head tea-maniacs running all over town. Forget high tea in the Queen’s private quarters, this is opium for the masses.

No girl, I know you did not go to the ‘Bucks and get one of their wacky-lattes, those mystery-meat Frankenstein-coffee-concoctions. Oy vey! I weep for your mortal soul, but fear not my coffee-fiending friend, there’s hope for you yet. Dr. Sommelier Tea Man is always on the scene at Tavalon to steer you in the right direction… away from the brown and toward the green, able to suggest a tea by your snuffly nose or other illin’ symptoms.

Tavalon is celebrating its zany Grand Opening this Thursday through Sunday with different promotions each day. But the marquee draw is by far the strangest of all things, a tea-bag-clad breakdance troupe battling it out in Union Square Park (could I even make this stuff up?), something you don’t see every day, even in whimsical NYC.

Tavalon is fertile ground for tea nutters like me, the Avalon-Babylon epicenter for tea-meisters to play. Next year we meet, my darling, in the Darjeeling fields of Shangri-La, scuttling the yeti, scaling Everest, and perfecting the perfect cup of tea, in the fairytale of my tea-ish fantasy.

Tavalon
22 East 14th St. (btw. 5th & University)
free sommelier tea classes every Wed. & Friday evenings (become a tea alchemist!)
www.tavalon.com

This fundraiser is a no-brainer, my loverlies. DINING FOR DARFUR is one charity event where you don’t have to leave your neighborhood, wear a black tie or listen to sanctimonious sermons about philanthropy and do-gooding (yadda-yah). You make a contribution just by eating Sunday dinner. All you do is sign up, show up and manja, brill!

I don’t even need to go into all the reasons we could and should contribute to Darfur (virtually a synonym with modern-day genocide). I’m just not in the mood to cry into my computer and flood the keyboard right now. You already know what’s going on there, the Schrodinger’s Cat is out of the bag and we just can’t stuff it back in.

So here’s what we can do, go to the website: www.diningfordarfur.com and click on the link to make reservations for dinner on Sunday night, April 30th, with one (or more if you’re truly altruistic and/or hungry) of the participating restaurants. Then you just do what you do so well, pig out. And 5% of the revenues go toward the IRC’s (International Rescue Committee) humanitarian work in Darfur. That’s the whole dealie-bop.

This is perhaps the only one time when mama’s old mealtime guilt-trip of, ‘finish your brussell sprouts, there are children starving in Africa’ makes any sense. In this case, eating more actually will aid people in need.

There’s a diverse range of venues participating in the event, so you can plum it or slum it to contribute toward riding the world of genocide, ethnic cleansing and final solutions. Everything about Darfur screams out for our attention and support. We must stand up together and say ‘never again,’ no matter who is in need.

I know I’m dating myself by admitting this, but I just don’t care. The first thing that comes to mind when I hear “Members Only” is a red or blue slicker jacket (I had the coveted silver, too cool for school), cunningly cinched at the waist, rustling in the breeze and adorning the likes of David Hasselhoff on “Knight Rider.” So very cool man, so 1970′s radical.

Nooooo! Forget the slicker fad that faded out with entre of Reganomics, here’s why Members Only of the New Millennium is so much cooler, man… all the discounted stuff! Utopian bath lotion, elfish cosmetics bags, Softlips (okay, that’s a contest, but it’s free to enter!), Nikki Hilton (or rather, a discount at one of the salons she frequents), deep therapy (actually, it’s a face masque, but it’s still good for your psyche), a coveted membership to the Bad Gal Club (I know you’re already a card carrying member, but this makes it far badder since it gives you free make-up goodies from Benefit), and lots of other fetching bits and bobbles.

Okay, I know NYChicas are swift, you already knew I was talking about the Beauty News Members Only Section, of course you did; I don’t have to explain everything to you (or am I bestowing too much credit?).

Savvy Beauty News Mavens, heed this warning: do not become a shopping lemming and miss out on all the good booty! Sign up and get oodles of heads-up on specials and discount codes by perusing our groovy listings. All the kool kids are doing it!

“…the alchemy of turning mundane matters into precious snippets of poetry… is typical of Prada.”

Prada’s philosophical fashion retrospective Waist Down is a fashionista’s MOMA and a wordsmith’s wet dream, la-de-da! This seamless mergence of fashion, architecture, motion, philosophy, dance and sheer aesthetics is on display in honor of the spirit of the skirt, in celebration of the silken joy, in tribute to the worth of the skirt. There’s just no way around it, skirts are dead sexy.

A bit over-dramatic? Moi? Dramatique?

A word of caution to you fashion mavens, you goddesses of shopping, you mavericks of taste, mark my words that you would be sorely remiss to miss this girlie eye candy eventful journey through the skirted-mind of Muiccia Prada from the late ’80′s till today. If ever skirts could be accused of exhibitionism, here is it: skirts gone wild, hello? bonjour! These saucy skirts on display literally twirl, flirt, flounce, flower and ga-dunk-a-dunk their undulating pendulum strut on the catwalk walls. Such fierce attitude in three-dimensions! Who knew?

I had never before explored the philosophic depths and poetic resonance underlying a Prada skirt, a blueprint so female in form and desire. It was a lot to ponder. (I’d keel on bended knee to see Princy-P Charles trying to pull off that mesh number, what a hoot!) Encountering each bodacious creation is akin to clicking on the skirted bulb in my fecund imagination and parting the frilly curtains. I see the bedazzled light!

A measure of comparison: I viewed the CHANEL at the Met and on the most basic level, Prada’s fomenting and living display kicks Chanel’s derrire back into last year. Muiccia’s skirts, enchanted into artistic life by AMO, is a coup du ingnue, cloyingly feminine, urbanely inventive.

“…gentle undulating space for a wild parrot’s abundant feathers to flap…”

Who else but MP is such a capable genius to reveal a skirts’ feminine movement, sans a model’s curvaceous swerves? What brilliance provokes the beauty of motion on a fan blade or window wiper? Exposes the stoic stability of a sculptural skirt? Who dares such defiance of the runway shows? Even the walls sport booty in Muiccia Prada’s skirts, dishing up attitude all over the joint.

The skirts’ movement melds as if a musical composition, an operatic flower filling my brain. I am seized with vertigo from dizzying, mocking fabric laughter, even as I descend la grand dame staircase into the cavernous underground.

Skirts adorning frozen mannequins still seem alive with inner glimmer; uncommon details, miniature silverware, tiny gears and metal, not what I expected to see through the magnifying lens. Its internal movement overpowers the stillness, every luminescent inch, glamorous, perpetrating radiance.

“…this flair skirt is the stuff of poetry…”

Gathering, pleating, cascading, frilling, draping, folding and puckering, the exhibition teaches a surprising visual lesson in textile architecture. I had no idea that movement was so essential to a skirt’s construction, to its personality and aura. I never before contemplated how intentional is the structure of a skirt, that the fabric could fall one step behind me, like a lover scorned.

I wanted to pull the forlorn marooned skirts free from the mannequins and fans, liberate them from their captors and layer them on. Ride my girl-bike all over town, flaunting the pleats, unfolding the creases, swishing the undulating hula-hubba hips; but for that pleasure, a steep price. It should be no surprise that Prada is manufacturing only a very limited re-release of the skirts in collection (several not for re-release), ranging in price from $4 – $14k, so choose sagely, you hardcore-Prada-diehards.

And be sure to make your sacred pilgrimage to the Prada MotherShip and oogle the strutting skirts. Don’t forsake what your mama said, and stick to the classics. See the chosen skirts of fashion’s elite. Experience the Prada feeling of “being feminine in a rather unusual way” (well I never! okay, maybe).

In the end, at its essence, Waist Down funked with my perspective until I perceived the Holy Spirit residing within each womanish skirt. It was an exhaustive journey. So when next I dress, I will take pause and appreciate the simple elegance of the skirt, the way it falls across my hips, the shape it takes when I step.

I behold the Prada code of morality and swear by its ethics this oath: I will never again take for granted the ingenuity of the noble skirt!

WaistDown Exhibition open now through May 31st
Prada Epicenter
575 Broadway
(Excerpts from a constructionist’s notebook on the WAIST DOWN exhibition)

Tie-dyed shawls, beaded jewels, fufu spoonbread, myriad cultures, tribal tongues, intrinsic spirit, manic dance, intoxicating ceremonies spun around bonfire spire, painted symbols and carved tattoos. In one word, Africa: the original Motherland, your hometown that knows you by name.

What do we care about Africa? Do you care about Africa? Does Africa’s survival have any impact on you? What is the cost-benefit analysis? Will the Feds raise interest rates? Will it affect your dividends? What’s really going on in Africa? Do you read the world news? Civil war, sectarian strife, government-funded militias, famine, extinction of species, AIDS, it’s a bleak homage to the cradle of civilization.

After all, Africa is the bellybutton of humanity (nihilists and Scientologists respectfully excluded), the ultimate Ground Zero, the puddle of primordial ooze, the origin of that funky spunky glump that glommed into humans, the birthplace of groove, the kernel of truth. We are all originally Africans, from way back in the day. The common thread of all descendents, Africa’s residue resides locked inside our DNA gloopy-soup, seated within every human bacterium and spore that ever was before or will be riding this blue twirling world (Creationists’ recusal noted in the log book). Let’s face it folks, we’re surfing this electron wave together.

And so, without further ado, I implore to your sense of philanthropy, mis bella banditas, to join the hullabaloo next Saturday’s eve (April 29th, 8pm): TO AFRICA WITH LOVE Cocktail Party & Fundraiser Fete (hosted in a private Tribeca Loft). This is the perfect event to drag out the girlish clan to nosh on hors d’oeuvres, sippie drinkies (featuring Soju, thank you! martinis), and raise money for the children of God’s Golden Acre (www.godsgoldenacre.org), an orphanage in South Africa.

Will Africa survive, or will she crumble back into ashes and snow? Here’s my optimistic answer: Africa must succeed, for the sake of us all.

IBedia Productions Presents:
TO AFRICA WITH LOVE
Saturday, April 29th, 8pm
Guest Musical Performance by the Infidels
Live DJ Spinning All Night!
106 Franklin Street, 2nd Floor
(Take 1/9 to Franklin – btw Church & W. B’way – Parking Lot on Worth & W. B’way)
Pre-registration by April 28th
Buy tickets online in advance
www.eventme.com/Event.aspx?Event=vtoDBZMENVs
Walk-In Registration on a First Come, First Serve Basis

YOU’VE GOT THE LOOK
By Amber Roniger

Life unfolds like a phantasmal TV commercial:

FANTASY SEQUENCE. SLOW-MO. You enter the party, looking fabulous. Your fabulous friends gather round and rave about how fabulous you are.

“Girl, you look fierce!”
“Did you whiten your teeth?”
“She’s in love!”
And blah-blah, etc… amidst a barrage of additional gibberish commentary, when all you actually did was pour yourself into your skinny jeans.

In the world of woman, every mamacita’s most highly prized possession is that one perfect pair of skinny jeans: sculpted by Da Vinci, contoured by Koons, denim from heaven that transforms you into a rock star. Skinny jeans selfishly demand all attention; beckoning and inspiring, they elicit passion. For femmes like I (stacked in the back), it’s almost impossible to find great-fitting blue jeans: they always gape at the waist and the high-rises feel just God-awful. But there are occasional exceptions.

Upon my first encounter with NYDJ Jeans and their so-called ‘tummy-tucking’ action, I am understandably dubious. They get the sidelong glance at best. “Not Your Daughter’s Jeans” quoth the label… mayhaps not the most glam, methinks. Readeth the wry sticky inside: “NYDJ cannot be held responsible for any positive consequences due to your fabulous appearance when wearing the Tummy Tuck Jean.”

As I dig on their theosophy, I commit to taking Jeans out for girly whirl, test-strut promenade and behold their impact on the world.

I behold Jeans before I don them. I regard them in the mirror, observing my reflection. Jeans are fibrously stretchy and surprisingly soft, snuggly and pliant… flexible enough from the get-go to feel like a pair of old lovelorn denims. I am intrigued. Snug as a bug in a rug and ‘aint nothin’ jiggling where it ‘aint a’supposed ‘ta be. Me likey so far.

I slide it to the left into the glorious spring morning, el sexi city day. Breezy petals rain down upon me, rocking the SJP vibe, moseying across East 73rd Street, ‘baw-chica-bow-bow’ insatiably ricocheting the brain. I none-too-subtly rubberneck for reactions (to Jeans, of course), on the lookout.

Okay, that was something, over there… that was definitely a look. We have attained official lookage. Would Uncle Jackie (Mason, of course) call it a leer or a look? Was it a look, or a leer? It’s hard to tell.

I resume my disco sashay to the Park, checking my reflection constantly in passing glass, trying to assess Jeans, to analyze them. In addition to the tummy tuck, I believe I detect a tad of lipo action around the thigh arena. Me likey, moto bene even more!

I jaunt past hot dog stand. Hot Dog man notes, “beautiful” as I ease on past, most decidedly not looking at Jeans (classic leer).

I settle down on the grassy knoll for some Saturday R&R with a good paperback. Even sitting in lotus, Jeans remain comfy and never bunch up into those insatiably disagreeable creases, which jab cruelly upon mein tender skin. There is no exploding muffin-top stomach drooping painfully over the waistband. Score again!

I remember watching Oprah when Spandex was but a fledging babe: ‘Spandex is a wunderkind, a miracle how it holds it all in! All the rage!’ she marveled.

Now I do hereby proclaim that Tummy-Tuck Jeans are the wave of the future! The re-birth of cool in the new Spandex Revolution of the Now Millennium! (It could happen like that…)

The afternoon turns breezy and Jeans and I pack it in. My passing does draw a particularly solicitous “Hi there” from Mr. Random Doorman, but perhaps he is just being neighborly? It’s hard to say.

It’s a complex relationship between woman and her blue jeans, which no man could or should ever come between. Heed!

Despite the virgin excursion of Jeans on the town, the only true litmus test of course is the court of my own opinion, and NYDJ Jeans make the coveted skinny jean list. Nice one! Jesse and Joe would be way proud!

Visit the site at: www.tummytuckjeans.com

You can purchase NYDJ Jeans online at: www.sarahsboutique.com and Nordstrom & Dillards

And in the flesh at:
Rose Hage
9219 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn
(718) 833 – 0132

Enchante! Spring has finally ushered in warm weather and languid days in the park, but most importantly, MAGNIFICENT JEWELS & COUTURE. This past weekend, Doyle’s held their phenomenal couture exhibition and auction… we’re talking the primo you-want-to-die-for them big guns of vintage glory: from the 1926 blue silk ombre fringe CHANEL dress, to the ultra-mod (nay, uber-mod!) 1960′s Largerfield day dress, and everyone else of consequence in between (can you say Dior, Valentino, Gucci, Hermes… give-it-to-me-now fabulous? Mai oui!).

Please tell me you didn’t miss out! You did? Por qua! Well salvation is still attainable at SOTHEBY’S MAGNIFICENT JEWELS collection, during the “Van Cleef & Arpels at Sotheby’s: A Centenary of Style” exhibition, April 19th-25th (www.sothebys.com). Don your vintage splendor and flaunt, strut and flounce it in the revered presence of the original godfathers of bling! before it all goes to auction on April 25th (at 10:15am, and again at 2pm). Capiche?

One more thing… if you’re not the white-gloved, chichi auction type, but still have that insatiable hankering for rockin’ antique jewels, then check one of my fav little gems on the Lower East Side: Doyle & Doyle (189 Orchard Street) has amazing victoriana bling! and heirloomesque estate pieces in every style and budget (I’ve been eyeing a few as a post-tax filing treat). Because let’s face it, that perfect sun dress at the hoity roof-top party is sorely lacking without a flawlessly accessorized killer gem or two… happy rummaging!

THANK GOD IT’S GIRLS NITE!
By Amber Roniger

When it comes to beauty tips and techniques, I can admit it, I’m sorely lacking. And judging from the pancake-powdered look of the majority of women during rush hour, they could use a little tutoring as well. Well help is on the way…

“Meet the Experts” Girls’ Nite is Wednesday, April 19th from 6-8pm, featuring industry experts in hair care, skincare, and makeup, namely Ted Gibson, Mally Roncal of Mally Beauty, and Sarah Kugelman of Skyn Ice. Seriously, this comes not a moment too soon as I’m-melting make-up and frizzy-frazzled hair weather is just round the bend.

“Meet the Experts” is open to the public for a $35 registration fee, a mere pittance to learn techniques to avoid looking like griddle cakes in the mornings and runny eggs by afternoon. To register call the Bendel’s Beauty Department at 212.904.7961

HIP HOP FLIP FLOPS
By Amber Roniger

It’s hard to explain exactly how dope Havaianas Flip Flops are. Nay, impossible. It requires something of a childish suspension of disbelief to accept that flip flops are more than just some crappy rubber you strap to your feet come spring to show off your shiny French manicure. It’s challenging to conceptualize that the flip flops could be the center show. I get it, really…

Thus was my own thinking when Betty, my personal Maven Goyisha Shopping Gal (in Gladwellian terms), approached me about ordering some Havaianas. What are these magical flip flops of which you so glowingly speak, ponders I. Honestly, the thought briefly flashes that Betty may have flipped her lid… again. Likened to the time she bragged about having $7 worth of coupons for the Dollar Store. Seriously…

But I’ve learned never to doubt Betty’s particular genius for finding extra-ordinary quality products, and rarely at cost. We cruise the site (www.havaianas.com) and I pick out two pair, one with a ‘lift’ heel and one flat, so cute (the site is an acid flashback in the making unto itself)!

And then I essentially forget about the Flip Flop Revelation… until they arrive.

I take the aqua lift pair for an impromptu, circuitous city hike on Easter Sunday. They’re surprisingly substantial; they actually have weight, muy impressivo! Me ‘n flip flops go everywhere, all the sunny afternoon. And for the first time ever, the thong thingie doesn’t rub a hole right through my poor big toe! I get no blisters, no rubber burns, no nothing! I must admit, these are some seriously fly flip flops. I must inform Maven Betty of my pleasure at once.

As I come to find, there are some crazy tricked-out Havaianas cruising around out there in the ethersphere. Lori Jack (www.lorijack.com) crafts some serious bling-bling hip hop flip flops for your fancy feets by embedding them with Swarovski crystals by hand “smashing, divine!

Psssst: I hear the next hot thing is Vera Wang bridesmaid’s gowns with Swavordski jeweled feet for major fetes. You heard it here first.

So go on and rock the Casbah in Havaianas this steamy season with your hip-hop-house-bling-bling-ching-glam-girl-thing bad ‘ole self!

I’m gonna speak in my library voice now, cause you know how we whisper when we’re talking about serious issues. I pose this imperative question to you: who’s the sexiest vampire in the land, the grand dame of bloodsuckers? Not merely Max Schreck in “Nosferatu” sexy (that’s a no-brainer), beyond Gary Oldman in “Dracula” sexy (a fiercely un-dead hottie). No, I’m talking LESTAT sexy. Hands down, bar none, the sexiest Prada wearing, 1,000-year-old underworld prince there ever was.

Join me this Monday, April 17th to watch Lestat flit his fiending flesh around the Broadway stage for Elton John’s AIDS foundation’s special Preview Benefit Event at the Broadway premier of LESTAT (www.ejaf.org). Pierce the wilds of Anne Rice’s galactic mind, tune your kazoo to Sir Elton’s sanguine tunes, and gape at Hugh Panaro (the leap from a phantom to a morphing bat is not so huge, me thinks), all the while supporting a wonderful foundation and the most important of causes.

Ever since EJAF’s inception in 1992, Sir E. has facilitated $60 million in contributions toward services all over the globe: funding for educational prevention programs, the elimination of prejudice and discrimination, and making services available for people’s most basic needs who are infected (or are at risk), both at home and in the developing world. This is an excellent way to make up for that salami you scarfed down during lent (guilt will get you everywhere).

I feel the need get personal for a moment (as I always do). Please don’t think me too terribly nosey, but anyone who claims they’ve never known someone with HIV is living in la-la. If you reside on this planet, and hey, there’s no real guarantee that you do (especially you resident aliens, isn’t this an oxymoron?), then you know or have known people with the disease. I remember standing with Michael, holding his trembling hands, when he found out he was infected. When his best friend, Luis, died, even though he always bragged about not taking his cocktail, it seemed a terrible shock. In that moment, it was almost as if Luis had never existed. But he did exist and we can never, ever forget. So what did we do? We cried, we got drunk, we laughed in tribute to his wacky essence, and then that was that.

But now, I think it’s not enough to just cry, or to pay tribute. It’s time to contribute. It’s a dangerous pitfall that we all too easily into fall into, to dry our tears and simply go on.

So in honor of Michael and Luis, and the millions of others here there and everywhere, there is something to be done while having fun. Contributing to this worthy cause is both sexy and necessary.

By attending the LESTAT Benefit Event you can cocktail at 6pm; sip your slurpie and schmooze a smidge with other giving souls. Then settle in for the 8pm curtain time and be amongst the first to witness the stellar Lestat on the broad way, in the blood fest. If you purchase two or more Patron tickets, you also get a great swag bag, and who doesn’t dig on the fab swag?

Don’t miss this golden opportunity to be an altruistic vampire voyeur!

If you can’t make the show cause you’re too overhung from sucking rum-soaked Easter eggs, there are other ways to contribute. You can attend ELTON’S CLOSET, a public sale of clothing and accessories from the personal wardrobes of Monsieur John and David Furnish (I’m sure there’ll be plenty of tiaras and tantrums flying outta that closet!). It’s all happening on the Concourse Level of Rockefeller Center (between 49th and 50th Streets) through April 15th, from 8am-7pm.

Join Elton John and care, contribute and continue to move the globe onward and upward toward the common goal of creating an educated, ignorance-free world, devoid of stigma, devoid of shame, and most importantly, devoid of HIV/AIDS.

EJAF
www.ejaf.org
75 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
eric.washer@ejaf.org

BIER MEANS BEER IN DEUTSCH
By Amber Roniger

All you savvy beer guzzling Euro travelers know full well that in Europe you can get a sehr gut bier on tap at any old pub for the price of a watery Budweiser here in the States. Even the house beers across the pond are heady-frothy-delicious. On the (finely calibrated) international beer scale, America rates as the skinny little runt who gets beaten up every lunchtime by the playground bully; we just don’t cut the senf. It’s similar to the $5 bottle of French wine you can grab in the grocery that sells for $25 here. Euros sure know how to glug in style.

Enter Loreley Restaurant and Biergarten on the Lower East Side, modeled after the Brauhaus in Cologne. This Easter Sunday, while the kiddies are stalking wild Cadbury bunnies in the park, grab your favorite stein and hop on over to Loreley for their hearty brunch buffet from 1-5pm (I’d definitely recommend reserving a spot for that, mein liebling).

Loreley is named after the mighty slate rock Lorelei in the Rhine Valley, rising Kraken-like from its waters. As the legend goes (’cause you know there’s always some legend), the reefs and rapids made it extremely dangerous for ships to pass the slate and apparently a siren called “Lorelei” bewitched the hearts of the sailors. When they looked up to the rock, their boats crashed and sank. Perhaps the sailors were more susceptible to ‘bewitching rocks’ in the days of yore than they are now; it’s hard to say. But I do remember some years back when Dennis Rodman’s changing afro color was the rubbernecking nightmare in Chicago (well after the demise of the days of yore), so there’s no accounting for the potency of a spectacle.

I’m sure there’s some inherent analogy between the bewitching siren and the bewitching biers and luscious food stuffs served at Loreley. I offer a small lesson in German-Hooked-On-Phonics by presenting a tiny sampling of their bubbly bier selection (repeat with me): Gaffel Kolsch (all you German bier-o-philes know that anything with an umlaut automatically means: sö gööd), Warsteiner, Erdinger Dark, and Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen (don’t be sore, I was testing your stick-to-it-ness with that one).

And I find the food words even more endearing: Halver Hahn, translation: aged Gouda on German rye (oh savory!), Bratwurst mit Brot, one bratwurst (yes dear, only one), with bread & mustard, Pommes Rot Weiss (rotting pomegranates?), French fries with ketchup & mayo (a.k.a. Russian dressing), and of course my favorite, Heringsstip nach Hausfrauen Art auf Vollkorn Brot, which is herring in cream sauce with onions and apples served on multigrain rye bread. If the menu wasn’t gratefully translated, and to continue my disturbing butchery of the German language, my guess would be: artistic hairy strippers, performing for housewives in the Volkswagen out back (my Austrian grandfather is rolling in his grave). But needless to say, Loreley serves some down home, traditional German yummies that would keep the von Trapps caroling all the way down the mountainside.

Indeed, what could be easier than singing the praises of German bier? I know not, and in fact, there is an age old song (once again, from the times of yore) that sings the praises of the Lorelei siren. I’ll serve you up just a spate:

I do not know what haunts me,
What saddened my mind all day;
An age-old tale confounds me,
A spell I cannot allay.
The air is cool and in twilight
The Rhine’s dark waters flow;
The peak of the mountain in highlight
Reflects the evening glow.

There sits a lovely maiden
Above so wondrous fair,
With shining jewels laden,
She combs her golden hair
It falls through her comb in a shower,
And over the valley rings
A song of mysterious power
That lovely maiden sings.

Hmmmm, an ode to a rock (and not even a googly-eyed Pet Rock at that), who would’a thunk it? Anyhoo… as Heidi Klum so drolly drawls, auf wiedersehen and glecklichen ostersonntag ihnen!!!

Loreley Restaurant & Biergarten
7 Rivington Street
(btw Bowery & Chrystie Streets)
www.loreleynyc.com
(212) 253-7077

What’s so fabulous about April? Is it giving up bread for Pesach? Foregoing meat for Lent? Birds twittering in the dewy treetops? Absolutely not! It’s Spa Week! April 17th-23rd is your week to pamper, detoxify and relax with no apologies and no strain on the pocketbook. For $50 bucks a pop you can get treatments that normally cost up to $200, a mere song and a dance.

I kid you not when I tell you that I cruised the entire Spa Week NY site (www.spaweek.org) and clicked into each and every treatment offered (would I lie to you?). And there is some yummy-amazing stuff up for grabs.

I’ll give just a sampling because there ees so much:
- Coconut Milk Pedicure with Warm Cream Hand Treatment (to soothe those scaly winter hands)
- 60 Min. Korean Body Scrub (I don’t know what this is, but I want it!)
- Laser Hair Removal for Bikini Line (hello?! summer’s a’comin!)
- 60 Min. Bamboo Massage (beat me baby!)
- 45 Min. Lemon Chiffon Body Scrub (pucker up!)
- Fusion Manicure & Fusion Pedicure (exotic mix of French & Persian?)
- St. Tropez Ultimate Air Full Body Spray Tan (for the Ban De Soleil tan… ooh la la!)
- 60 Min. Coffee & Cream Body Scrub (good enough to drink!)
- 30 Min. Sugar Plum Souffle Hydrating Facial (is it possible to lick your own face?)
- Brazilian Wax (d o I even need to go there?)
- 45 Min. Hot Stone Massage (ooooh… stones… hot… heaven!)
- 45 Min. Mango/Ginger Brown Sugar Scrub with Vichy Shower (perhaps with a sprinkle of vodka and a hint of mint?)

And the luminous list goes on. But book early and often, you savvy chicititas, or you’ll miss out on the marvelous madness. ‘Cause you know full well there are no real secrets in NYC! Happy-happy-joy-joy spa’ing to you, to you!

SEE YOU IN HONG KONG!
By Amber Roniger

Asian culture is more than just cheap eats in Chinatown, magic finger shiatsu massagers, fancy dancing dragons and Ken Wantanabe (back off girls, he’s mine!), although these are certainly some highlights.

The Asia Society is an international organization providing a forum for building awareness of the more than thirty countries generally defined as the Asia-Pacific region. The New York branch of the Asia Society, founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller, III, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Come on out to view their cinema events (don’t you wish you could fly like Ziyi Zhang!), cultural exploration forums (“If You Knew Sushi Like We Know Sushi”), one order of inari please! and the singular Rockefeller Collection exhibition, displaying 150 amazing works of Asian art collected by three generations of Rockefellers.

Beginning in March 2003, AsiaStore at Asia Society and Museum will be the exclusive New York venue offering a magnificent and unique selection of jewelry and accessories from the boutiques of Lotus Arts de Vivre, headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand.

All you greenies can join in the discussion, “Is Good Environment Good Business?” in the Society’s Critical Issues Series. All you throat singing enthusiasts can take a gander at “Tumen Ekh: Music and Dance of Mongolia” featuring haunting melodics on the morin tur (horse-head fiddle, who would’a thunk it?). And all you jetsetters can clue into great Asia Society happenings around the globe.

And for you true blue-blooded pond-hoppers, the anniversary season will conclude in December with the “hard-hat” opening of the Asia Society Hong Kong Center’s new building and museum!

The Asia Society 725 Park Avenue at 70th Street 212-288-6400 www.asiasociety.org.

OK…so enough of this crazy weather! One minute I’m ready to go out in my sandals and shorts and the next I’m back to throwing on my staple black winter coat. Blah! However, despite the constant teasing, I believe that spring really is just around the corner. So, mes amies, let’s breathe a collective sigh of relief and shed these dark and dreary clothes! Of course this means its now time to turn our attention to that all-important seasonal task — spring cleaning. Before you blanch entirely (because the past winter already has you looking pasty), today I’m talking about a wardrobe cleaning fest! And Clothes=Fun.

It’s the universal plight of women everywhere: bloated closets stuffed with decades of fashion hits and misses and the proverbial cry, “I have nothing to wear!”

Enter Oprah show guest gurus, Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo of Visual Therapy, a luxury personal shopping service (um, excuse me, that is awesome). Their approach to fashion and personal style is this: for better or worse we are what we wear. That may sounds harsh but look at it this way: don’t you always feel better and more fabulous in that favorite outfit that you look absolutely stellar in? ‘Nuff said. Why have only one or two stellar outfits instead of a whole closet full? Why not step out every day thinking, “I look fabulous! I feel fabulous! I am fabulous!” Think it can’t be done? Well, allow Joe and Jesse to prove you wrong.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “that’s nice but we can’t all have amazing personal shoppers and stylists”…(shout out to all you girls who can). Yet, there is a way to have some Jesse and Joe in all of our lives. Their new book, Nothing to Wear?: A 5-Step Cure for the Common Closet, is like having the guru Visual Therapy duo at your disposal. Lucky for us, the book just hit the shelves in time for the much-needed spring overhaul.

How can you achieve this magical wardrobe, you ask? It’s simple: Nothing to Wear? is like having your own personal style workbook from “the fashion SWAT team” themselves, guiding you to your most fabulous self. For Jesse and Joe, style is as much about bringing the internal you in sync with your external image as it is about fabrics and colors. Did you read that? Stop. Go back. Read it again. It’s about authenticating yourself, style-wise. The book is a step-by-step guide to defining your style, “editing” your wardrobe, discovering what’s missing and pulling it all together.

Excuse me, but where has this book been all my life? It’s as if Jesse and Joe have gone inside every woman’s head, heard the questions and felt the anxieties, and put into print the answers to your fashion conundrums. Through a series of quizzes and questionnaires you learn how to find your own fashion personality (they’re fun, and come on…who doesn’t like answering those little questionnaires about yourself?). The book is designed to be an interactive “workbook,” to help you achieve harmony and authenticity in your style and closet!

Some of my favorite aspects of the book: Sections on clarification (establishing our style icon), help in letting go (um, yes, my biggest problem…look, I tell myself in the mirror — book in hand – it’s time to get rid of that hideous printed blouse and the sequined tube top), and a guide to value shopping — how to spend wisely.

My favorite piece of advice from J & J? “If an item does not look good on you in the store, it won’t look good on you at home or anywhere else”….Yes! Jackpot! Who among us hasn’t stood in front of a store mirror, tugging at an ill-fitting piece of clothing, but we buy it anyway because we think “well, its probably just the lighting…” No! Do your fabulous self a favor and get this book.

Joe and Jesse are the only two men to which I’d say “change me, please change me!” Their whole approach will change the way you see fashion, style, and yourself — for the better. Darlings, it’s time to strut your amazing selves right into spring!

THE GIFT OF GIVING
By Amber Roniger

My friends are a motley crew, what can I say, they really are (kinda like the world’s ugliest dog, Sam, may his scrawny soul rest in peace), but I absolutely adore them nonetheless. Between the lot of them, they’ve suffered almost every plight imaginable (for a group under the tender age of 40): brain surgery, migraines, walloping cramps, anemia; you name it, the moribund list goes on (and on). And since I, their gallant friend, am forced to suffer their harrowing tales right alongside them (I deem myself some sort of empathic alchemist), it only makes good sense for me to try and somehow contribute to their cure.

Just so you know, I love giving gifts; love it, love it. I label myself a random gift buyer. I tend to stray away from ceremony and just grab enticing stuff at any ole time: loose rooibos tea flowers for Betty, rose water for Erica, Mexico soccer jerseys for Maya, green tea extract for Jenny. I generally give impetuously, but once in a blue moon, I’ll stash it away for an actual ‘occasion.’ It’s one thing to expect a gift on your birthday (you diva, you), but it’s a whole different kind of wonderful to give and receive phenomenal random gifts.

Back when me ‘n the girl crew were all still struggling and po-po, we’d buy each other the most frivolous chachkis imaginable: strawberry print thong underwear, purple and orange striped knitty hats, pink swirley notebooks, scratch ‘n sniff googley-eyed stickers; ridiculous stuff, pure playful indulgence.

But as times got better, I made a commitment to buy the crew gifts of value, not necessarily monetary, but rich in meaning and effect.

To digress into a related antidote, a few weeks before Christmas last, I find myself in a chiropractic office off Park Avenue on a Friday eve, listening to a live Kirtan concert performed by the musical artist, Wah! (if you’ve never floated away to Wah!’s goddess music, you are sooo missing out). Clearly, Nancy Drew, this is no ordinary chiropractic office. All around abounds so many marvelous gifty-goodies for sale: gorgeous hand-dyed dresses, scented candles, top shelf essential oils, Buddha incense, unusual books and tons of other womanish-fabulish items.

And here I first encounter Vanessa Kudrat. Kudrat is one of these earthy, healthy, glowy, flittery women with an I-know-the-ways-of-the-world swish. I observe her grooving down to Wah!’s music along with every other swaying body in the joint.

After the heavenly sounds fade away and everyone slowly withdraws from their music-induced stupor, I approach Kudrat about putting together a custom gift basket for Maya, the noble migraine sufferer. We began fingering the luscious wholistic (for the whole person) goodie collection for the modern mystical journey, deciding what to include. One of Kudrat’s suggestions is this obscure object called a still point inducer. Oddly enough, I already possess one and had also convinced Maya to purchase one to counteract her migraines, which she did.

Incidentally, my other girlfriend, Jenny (who had brain surgery, and a plethora of other bizarre maladies), was really hep to try the inducer. She lay down on it on the sly underneath her desk at work proclaiming, “It’s just like lying on a pair of breasts. Supple. If it takes lying on breasts to cure my pain, I’ll lie on breasts.” Jenny also purchased one. See, I am quite the alchemist, and you doubted me!

I digress for a moment to spread the good word about still point inducers, because they’re simply amazing, handy little items. I was skiing in Val D’Isere two winters ago, my first pathetic attempt at snowboarding. I’ve been a skier practically since inception, so I cockily assumed I could master riding the freshies in no time. Uh, yah, not. Predictably, some skier tricked right in front of me and I took what I (falsely) valiantly refer to as ‘the fall.’ Yeow! I whacked the crap out of my shoulder (only second in pain to the time I burned an Africa-shaped scar on my foot attempting to boil oil for egg rolls, but again, I double-digress, huge party foul). The pain was immense. I turned in my board for a nice pair of parabolic skis and off I shooshed.

You guessed it, two days later I was in mortal pain. A kind gentleman from Jersey (not New Jersey, but the old, Jersey Cow, Jersey) staying in our hotel offered his help.

“Are you a chiropractor?” I (seemingly) logically asked.

“No, I’m a dentist.”

Good lord, they sure do things differently in Jersey. But, he assures me, he is a craniosacral therapist and has this whosemawhat Russian machineimijig that will work wonders on my withering shoulder. To make a painfully long, painful tale, short, the craniosacral therapy (energy work which left me Demerol-woosey) was a miracle cure.

When I came back to America, pain free, I started reading up on it and voile! discovered the still point inducer, an object which mimics the effects of the healer’s hands in craniosacral therapy.

Whew!!

So when Kudrat suggests the inducer, I realize this chica really knows her unusual swag. We put together a wonderful basket custom tailored for Maya’s particular ailments.

When Maya opens her gift basket in la-la L.A., I practically feel her aaaaah. She reports that the eucalyptus oil smells “divine, dahling.” It was truly the perfect present for her and showed how seriously I take her health and how preciously I regard her friendship in my life (holla!).

You can scope out Kudrat’s amazing collection of gifts for giving at www.HealingGifts.Net as well as some really unusual and special workshops, classes and events. Get to it you sassy, brassy goddesses and happy, blessed shopping!

ONE
By Amber Roniger

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ivy League professor, cultural analyst and author extraordinaire, joins an impressive panel to speak about “Identities in the 21st Century” at the 92nd Street Y this Sunday, April 9th at 7:30pm. Predictably, this event is already sold out. But don’t let that stop you from picking up a copy of Appiah’s latest work, “Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers” and giving it a good mulling over.

This is truly the time, my enlightened friends, to contemplate the idea of “One.” Bono sings of it, the Dalai Lama speaks about it, the theory of the over-soul teaches it. A simple but powerfully essential message; ponder the idea that we are all One. Citizens of One planet, members of One species, neighbors in One extraordinary period in time. Explore what unites us. Celebrate what defines us. And dedicate yourself to learning what it truly means to be a citizen of the world.